Tourism: Mission Beach Becomes West Coast Base For Summer Programming
San Diego will soon ride its own wave of fame when MTV makes roller coaster-famed Belmont Park the summertime answer to its home studio in Times Square.
The New York City-based music channel will begin taping general footage and several of its shows in Mission Beach this week.
The San Diego site will be the base for the network’s summer programming, which will take place at various West Coast locations.
Throughout the rest of the year, the show is based in New York City’s famous block.
Local taping, which will end in mid-August, will begin broadcasting on Memorial Day weekend, said Bob Kusbit, MTV’s senior vice president of production.
“We wanted to find a place where the real energy was there and the people on Rollerblades going by, and the people swimming at the beach in the background and people playing volleyball,” Kusbit said.
“San Diego and the boardwalk there really afforded us that. It’s just a place with high energy, a lot of people and it’s a really pretty place, so it gives us a lot of options.”
Crews were constructing a 5,000-square-foot studio site in a building at the northwest end of Belmont Park.
MTV subleased the area from Wave Loch Tool & Die, LLC, which is building an artificial-wave surf park on the property.
The MTV studio will overlook the beach and the boardwalk and will have access to nearby features, such as the Belmont Park roller coaster, Kusbit said.
It’s also likely that shooting will take place all over San Diego, involving tourism and entertainment hubs and other businesses. Kusbit wasn’t sure which locations would be chosen. Those decisions tend to be last-minute.
Although San Diego was chosen as the summer studio in March, the process began in mid-1999, when MTV decided to make California the setting for its 2000 summer programming.
Toward the end of ’99, a scout examined locations. Kusbit and his department visited several areas in January and February.
A large part of bringing the studio to San Diego was allaying the concerns of Mission Beach residents, who remembered MTV’s chaotic visit to the area in March 1994.
The weeklong shooting, which was for MTV’s spring break event, had culminated in violence and a near riot. The problems had later been attributed to a related beach festival.
To get support this year, representatives from MTV, the city and the film commission attended community meetings to assure residents about security and crowds, said Cathy Anderson, the local film commissioner.
Residents balked at MTV’s original requests to shoot in a house or a hotel, Anderson said.
The summer-long taping is very different from the previous event, she said. Rather than the one-week event that intentionally drew crowds, this production will be low-key, with handheld cameras and little opportunity for a crowd to see it or participate.
Since 1995, MTV has shot its summer programming at a beach locale. Last year, the location was Paradise Island in the Bahamas.
Sal Giametta, spokesman for the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, said although MTV’s 12- to 34-year-old demographics aren’t San Diego’s typical target market, the city and county will benefit from the exposure.
